Ten Creative Ideas for Energizing Our Streets

Posted by admin on October 29, 2012

We all know that walking has many advantages over driving—it costs less, it burns more calories, and we get to see the world in a way that is much less rushed, properly taking in our surroundings. Those surroundings, however, could in many places need a bit of a makeover. Retail establishments put a lot of thought and money into making their space a desirable place to visit. Our research has found that reducing vehicle travel by just one mile per day, per person in the 50 largest metros in the U.S. could lead to over $31 billion in generated savings—so why wouldn’t our communities work to make our streets a more desirable place to walk? Here are ten creative placemaking ideas to inspire our streets. We encourage you to share any more you’ve seen around the web!

Tagging can be a costly and headache-inducing problem for city leaders, but by encouraging controlled, colorful graffiti art you can turn a negative into positive artistic expression in communities that could use a pop of color.

Speaking of color… our crosswalks don’t always have to be the standard black and white stripe. All throughout the world we can find examples of creative crosswalk markings and interesting pavers. Other infrastructure in the city can be re-energized with nothing short of a bit of paint.